The present invention relates in general to pulse-width modulators, and more specifically to pulse-width modulators with a single-cycle response using a single integrating amplifier.
Switching converters and switching amplifiers are most often controlled with a pulse-width modulator (PWM). PWM is generally realized by comparing a modulation signal with a sawtooth signal. Linear feedback has traditionally been used to achieve control over certain state variables in the switching converters. However, nonlinear control of PWM switching converters has shown excellent improvement compared to linear feedback methods at optimizing system response, reducing the distortion, and rejecting power supply disturbances. These techniques improve performance over the linearly controlled techniques by directly controlling the switching variables (e.g. switched voltage or current) rather than correcting the error after it has occurred.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,278,490 describes several approaches that ensure the switching variable exactly equals the control reference each switching period and thus have single-cycle response. The constant frequency approach in U.S. Pat. No. 5,278,490 is simple, robust, and has been applied to high fidelity class-D audio applications as shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,617,306. This technique requires a fast reset circuit and integrator to minimize signal distortion during the reset period. The constant on-time version of U.S. Pat. No. 5,278,490 and the method described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,659,184 are also simple techniques providing single-cycle response by ensuring the error between the switched-variable and the control reference is zero each cycle. A nice feature of these techniques is that they do not need a re-settable integrator, reducing component speed requirements. However, their switching frequency is widely changing (over 10 times), which deteriorates performance.
Switching power amplifiers for high fidelity audio amplification require wide bandwidth and low distortion, which imposes a great challenge to the conventional PWM method. Class-D switching audio amplifiers usually use linear feedback with resulting limited bandwidth due to the need for a stable control loop. Linear feedback methods are susceptible to the power supply ripple, dead time control, and non-ideal switching edges causing distortion. Therefore, to alleviate these problems, the power source is designed to stringent requirements adding cost, complexity, and weight to the system. Since the constant frequency single-cycle response methods ensure that each cycle the average value of the switched-variable equals the control reference, they inherently reject power supply disturbances and non-ideal switching edges, dramatically lowering the power source regulation requirements and easily allowing soft switching to be used. For single-cycle response control methods with widely changing switching frequencies, these advantages are not as prevalent since the frequency modulation effect induces distortion.
U.S. Pat. No.6,084,450 is another improved nonlinear control technique that has single-cycle response, does not need a fast resettable integrator in the control path, and is suitable for controlling high bandwidth amplifiers with excellent performance. It obtains single-cycle response similar to the non-constant switching methods described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,278,490 by forcing the error between the averaged switched-variable and the control reference to zero each cycle. However, the on-pulse or off-pulse of the controller of U.S. Pat. No. 6,084,450 is adjusted each cycle by a circuit comprising a resettable integrator that ensures almost constant switching frequency. Its typical implementations require at least three operational amplifiers using matched resistors and capacitors, at least two bipolar comparators, four different kinds of logic gates and numerous matched resistors and capacitors, and a analog switch to discharge a capacitor. It is geared towards class-D amplifiers in its preferred embodiments. Bipolar comparators can be slow or expensive, and difficult to interface. That patent teaches little on the subject of amplifier distortion versus the accuracy of a single-cycle response controller which requires attention in switching behavior of components.
What is needed is a one-cycle controller requiring as few as a single integrating amplifier, unipolar comparators, and few matching components for good manufacturability, higher reproducibility, and lower cost.
The present invention pertains generally to a nonlinear controller that has single-cycle response, and is suitable for controlling high bandwidth amplifiers with excellent performance. It obtains single-cycle response similar to prior art methods described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,278,490 and 6,084,450 by forcing the error between the averaged switched variable and the control reference to zero each cycle. However, unlike prior art methods, the present invention does not need any resettable integrator, requires a single integrating amplifier, and fewer components. It also provides a method and apparatus to compensate for delay times of comparators and switching circuits to achieve low distortion in the output of the amplifiers, and pre-trigger signal for the power modulator of the amplifiers.
In accordance with an aspect of the invention, a PWM control method is provided for controlling a switched variable such that the average of the switched variable in one cycle is equal or proportional to a reference voltage cycle. Control of the cycle average can be achieved by integrating the error between the switched variable and the reference signal, wherein the switched variable will be forced to change its state when the error reaches zero. In addition, the width of the pulses is adjusted by a simple technique to achieve near constant switching frequency.
In accordance with another aspect of the invention, a PWM controller for controlling a switched variable with single-cycle response is provided which comprises an error integrator circuit, comparator circuits and a flip-flop. It is capable of controlling either a binary variable, a tri-state variable, or a multi-state variable.